Chapter 87
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 87
Click.
The sound of the key sliding into the lock echoed.
If he turned this, he could uncover the truths she had hidden from him.
As that reality set in, his grip on the key tightened, and a tremor ran through his clenched fist. The shaking started in his fingertips, traveled up his arm, and spread through his entire body. It was, without a doubt, the tremor of hesitation.
“Hoo…”
He sucked in a sharp breath, his chest swelling as air filled his lungs.
He had to open it.
He’d come this far. He couldn’t back down now.
Reinforcing that thought, Dokyun gripped the key tighter.
Thump. Thump.
His heart began to pound painfully. It was an excitement born of tension.
He had to get a grip.
He closed his eyes, blurring his awareness of the world. He focused on his breathing again, calming his heart. He consciously loosened the muscles that had grown taut with anxiety.
A moment later, feeling some of the tension leave his body, Dokyun began to turn the key.
His wrist rotated slowly clockwise, the cool sensation of metal traveling up his arm. The hard resistance he felt as he applied pressure weighed heavily on his mind.
The key turned, little by little.
Dokyun squeezed his eyes shut and put his weight into it, trying to turn it all at once.
What followed was—
Clunk—!
—the dull thud of a key failing to engage the lock.
A jarring sensation shot through his fingertips.
Opening his eyes, Dokyun saw the key, only halfway turned, refusing to go any further.
“Ah…”
A sigh escaped through his teeth.
In its wake, Dokyun felt the taut string of tension inside him snap.
A hot breath spilled from his lips.
This wasn't the right key.
“Huu…”
Thump.
A dull sound echoed as he rested his head against the door.
He felt as if all the strength had been sucked from his body.
Unable to support himself, Dokyun sank to his knees before the door.
He pressed his right hand to his chest, grimacing as his heart began to race again.
But it wasn’t disappointment over his failed attempt that twisted his expression.
The emotion he was feeling now was infinitely closer to relief. He was relieved that this door had not opened.
“Ughhh…”
A breath escaped him like a retch, scattering the heat that had built up inside him, and his frantic pulse began to settle.
Just moments ago, he had been whipping himself onward, forcing himself to stand before this door. Yet now that it hadn't opened, he found himself shamelessly relieved.
What followed was a wave of self-loathing. He was disgusted with himself for feeling relieved that his current life could continue a little longer.
He hated the part of himself that had felt relief in that instant.
Dokyun knew exactly why he was so scared, why he felt so relieved.
It was because the answer to the question that always clung to him might be lying just beyond that door.
Why did it have to be me? Why was I the one Eun-ah wanted?
That question, which had taken root in his mind at some point, had grown more and more distorted the more he came to understand her condition.
What if it wasn't me she wanted? What if she just needed someone to play this role? What if, to her, I was replaceable?
An anxiety bordering on delusion spread endlessly.
Fears like these, which had settled in him long ago, had made him turn away from that door. The moments he was living now were so sweet that he had averted his eyes, knowing they would continue as long as he chose not to look.
It was an emotion whose cause and effect he couldn't begin to comprehend himself.
She was the woman who had suddenly kidnapped him and destroyed his life. She was a woman who deserved all his resentment and hatred.
There should have been no reason to be sad at the thought of being nothing to her, yet his emotions stubbornly denied all logic.
It was all because of the seed of curiosity that had drifted into the roiling sea of his hatred.
It was because that tiny seed had taken root and sprouted into something called compassion.
That sprout of compassion grew and grew, its vines wrapping around his body, ensnaring him. And on one of those vines, the one dangling right before his eyes, a flower had bloomed.
He had been so captivated by the beauty of that flower—a flower he dared to call love—that he couldn't tear his eyes away.
And so, he couldn't bring himself to look at the soil named hatred from which it had sprung.
This emotion, which had arrived like a thief in the night, was shaking him to his core.
That was why he wanted to be someone precious to her. He wanted to stay in this place, to continue playing this role.
That selfish desire had carried him forward, only to stop him dead in front of the truth. He was satisfying himself by turning away from it.
He didn't even know what truth lay in that room, yet he was frozen in place, terrified that it might pierce him, that it might hurt him.
It was ridiculous.
So what if there was a truth he couldn't handle? He just had to overcome it.
Even if the truth lurking in that room was something beyond his power to change, he just had to struggle against it with all his might.
In the end, it all depended on his own heart.
And yet, even though it was as simple as that, he had felt relief at the fact that the door didn't open.
He hated his own fickle emotions.
He was pathetic for being a man of so little substance.
In the end, as always, Eun-seol had been right. He wasn't ready.
He was just a coward who had put on a show of reckless bravado, only to feel glad that he couldn't see what was inside.
He was nothing more than a coward, inflating an unknown that was not yet his to know, and scaring himself with his own imagination.
His fists clenched again as a suffocating frustration filled his chest.
The heat from his flushed head spread to the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill over.
In the end, he had failed to open the door.
*
The next day, Dokyun stood before the hospital room door, his hand hovering over the handle, still hesitating.
If he opened this door, he would have to face Eun-seol.
He had acted with a certain degree of resolve, but now that the moment of reckoning had arrived, he couldn't help but waver.
Besides, the only thing he had gained from it all was a deeper understanding of his own pathetic nature, which left him at a complete loss for words.
As he stood there hesitating, a voice came from inside the room.
“Come in.”
She must have sensed his presence.
Realizing he could no longer stand out here, Dokyun took a deep breath and opened the door.
As he stepped inside, his eyes fell on Eun-seol, who was staring at him with a book resting on her lap.
Her eyes were haggard, their expression difficult to read.
She looked at him with the same complexion as always.
Watching her, Dokyun felt his head instinctively lower. He couldn't find the courage to meet her gaze head-on.
He approached her with a heavy heart. As he stood beside the hospital bed, she held out her palm.
She wanted the key back.
Without a word, Dokyun handed it to her.
She took the key and tucked it away. Dokyun’s head sank even lower.
What kind of criticism will she level at me? What excuse should I make? As he agonized over it, he saw her open her book again and resume reading.
Suddenly, a dazed feeling washed over him.
Nothing he had expected came to pass. There was no criticism, no reprimand, no anger directed at him. She simply read her book in silence, as if nothing had happened.
Dokyun knew what it meant.
She was forgiving him.
A surge of emotion welled up inside him again, and he spoke in a low, subdued tone.
“…Why aren’t you saying anything?”
He wanted to demand if she didn't find him pathetic for ignoring her warning and taking the key. He wanted to ask if she didn't want to mock him for coming back with nothing to show for it.
He asked because he thought he might feel better if she just blamed him, but she didn't give him the answer he wanted.
“Is there a reason to?”
Her tone was indifferent. Her eyes didn't spare him a single glance.
It was the same indifferent way of speaking as always, but Dokyun knew that beneath it lay a consideration for him.
Cruelly, even in a moment like this, she was a generous and warm person.
At that, Dokyun felt something surge from deep within him.
“Don’t you think I’m pathetic?”
“What is?”
“Me, I mean.”
He wanted her to reprimand him. He wanted her to condemn him for being unable to do a single thing right, for just floundering around.
“You were right, Eun-seol. I’m not ready. I stole that key to find out something on my own, but I just whimpered in front of the door and felt relieved when I found out it was the wrong one.”
He wanted to lash out, to ask why she wasn't blaming him when he was being so pathetic.
“I’m just a freeloader, drunk on the idea that I was needed, running wild without knowing my place.”
He wanted to ask why she was forgiving him, a man who had ignored her warning as if he were someone important.
“A guy who’s never done a single thing right finally went and ignored you, didn’t he? I’m messing up, aren’t I? So why aren’t you angry?”
So please, just reprimand me. He spoke with that hope, and she finally turned her gaze to him.
Silence followed.
She stared at him for a long time before finally opening her mouth.
“You’re doing well.”
The answer that came back was, once again, a word of comfort.
His chest tightened with frustration.
He felt like he was suffocating, like his blood had stopped flowing. Annoyance flared.
His fists clenched and he gritted his teeth. His reason blurred by the nauseating frustration, Dokyun was about to snap at her.
“So…!”
“Just.”
She cut him off.
“I’m saying you’re doing well because you are doing well. When someone is talking, you should fucking listen.”
Her face was etched with irritation. She sighed and then continued.
“Fine, I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”
Dokyun sucked in a breath at her sudden apology.
He opened his mouth to ask why she was suddenly apologizing, to say that she wasn't the one who needed to be sorry right now, but she spoke again before he could.
“It seems the words ‘I need you’ put too much pressure on you.”
He wanted to say no. He wanted to say it was just his own inadequacy.
But the words swirling in his mouth were shattered by what she said next.
“Is it because of this leg?”
She pointed to her own leg, wrapped in a cast.
At that, Dokyun felt his chest tighten.
“Do you think this is your fault?”
She continued, effortlessly uncovering the stone he had hidden so carefully in his heart.
“I told you before. It’s not your fault. This happened because Go Eun-chae is a crazy bitch. This isn’t something you need to feel indebted for.”
Her words were caked in irritation. Her expression was deeply creased.
“Get a grip.”
And yet, the words she offered him were filled with so much warmth.
“Guilt eats away at a person. When you feel indebted, you get impatient, and it clouds your judgment. In the end, it makes things that would have worked out, fail.”
Her tone was sharp, but her words seeped into him, spreading a gentle warmth.
“It’s been nearly twenty years. Go Eun-chae has lived in this body for that long. Did you really think you could solve it all in just over a month? It’s only natural that there are no visible results right away. I’ve told you time and time again, it’s not your fault that this crazy bitch wrecked her body.”
Again, she was giving him something to lean on.
“You are doing well.”
She was making him forgive himself.
Only after she finished speaking could Dokyun finally meet her eyes.
Her gaze, which held him completely, was filled with an endless, warm light.
She was a truly strange person. How could she read people so well, seeing straight through to the heart he himself had been ignoring, and comforting him?
Just as she said, his impatience might have stemmed from her leg. A fear might have been sprouting inside him—the fear that if he didn't get rid of Go Eun-chae quickly, the next time it wouldn't end with just a broken leg.
Perhaps he had been afraid that she would disappear before he even had a chance to do anything.
The strength drained from his body.
His fists, which had been clenched tight all this time, slowly unfurled.
His eyes, which had grown especially sensitive to the cold this winter, were threatening to burn again.
A sense of exhaustion washed over him. Gritting his teeth to keep a sob from escaping, Dokyun muttered.
“…I’m sorry. For showing you such a pathetic side of me.”
“Stop being sorry. I don’t have a hobby of listening to people whine.”
The words that came back were, as always, full of warmth.